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Eye Care

Pharmacy

Primary Medical Care

Posts@PCC

Events@PCC

18 November 2009 / Issue 187

The weekly news bulletin from your world class commissioning partner

National insight

More for less: are productivity and efficiency improving in the NHS?

This briefing looks at how NHS money has been spent, whether primary care trusts have been successful in keeping more patients out of hospital, and whether hospitals have become more efficient. It highlights that the NHS is treating more patients at lower cost and trusts are starting to meet the challenges of the future.

Summary Care Records launched in London

Summary Care Records making key medical information available wherever patients are treated are being rolled out across London. The national roll-out of the programme will take place next year.

A Summary Care Record is a secure electronic summary of core information such as medications, allergies, adverse reactions and key health information derived initially from the patient's GP record and added to as necessary by other healthcare staff.

Regional highlight of the week

Hampshire's dental helpline on target to hit half a million calls

Hampshire and Isle of Wight's dental helpline, which signposts residents to local services, is on target to reach half a million incoming calls by end of December. The helpline is hosted by Southampton Community Healthcare (SCH) and provides services for NHS Southampton City, NHS Hampshire, NHS Portsmouth City and Isle of Wight PCT. The service handles up to 10,000 calls a month and arranges approximately 180 emergency dental appointments daily across Hampshire and Isle of Wight. Registrations with a dentist are usually arranged within two weeks, with the majority sorted within days. The helpline has its own dedicated website at: www.hampshiredentalhelpline.nhs.uk where patients can find out which dentists will be taking on new patients and to sign up.

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Commissioning

Directions about reports on consultation with regard to commissioning decisions and relevant decisions 2009

These Directions are issued under sections 17A and 24A, and section 8, of the NHS Act 2006, and trigger the duty on primary care trusts and strategic health authorities to produce reports each year on consultation in relation to commissioning decisions, with effect from April 2010. The first reports will cover the period April 2009 to March 2010 and will be produced before the end of September 2010.

Real Accountability aims to help the NHS get ready for the legislation. The guidance explains the legal obligations and provides practical help and advice in terms of preparing and publishing reports.

Commercial and procurement skills for commissioners of children's services

This page links to a set of guidance documents designed to help commissioners understand and apply commercial and procurement skills in their work. The documents cover the key principles of procurement, an overview of both strategic procurement and the contracting process, an overview of resource mapping and a basic jigsaw tool designed to help commissioners understand the key principles of change management.

Review of the National Chlamydia Screening Programme

In December 2008, the Department of Health asked Dr Ruth Hussey, Regional Director of Public Health in the North West, to review the impact of the National Chlamydia Screening Programme and whether the programme is achieving its aims. Dr Hussey's report makes comments on the current programme arrangements, support and drive for delivery. The report is for information so that the NHS can benefit from awareness of the recommendations.

Waiting time limits may become a legal right

The Department of Health has launched a consultation containing proposals to enshrine the 18-week waiting time target in law.

The proposals will give patients the legal right to maximum waiting times to start treatment by a consultant within 18 weeks of GP referral, and to be seen by a cancer specialist within two weeks of GP referral.

Wanted: feedback on world class commissioning site

The world class commissioning (WCC) team is considering revamping the WCC Networks website. If you're a commissioner and use the website we'd appreciate your comments and suggestions on how it can be improved.

We're also looking for a small group of users who'd like to provide more in-depth feedback to help develop the site. To provide your feedback or express interest in joining the user group, please email worldclasscommissioning@dh.gsi.gov.uk with 'WCC Networks feedback' in the subject.

Weekly swine flu reports

The latest weekly report from NHS Direct on calls volumes to its hotline and statistics from the National Pandemic Flu Service will be available on the PCC website tomorrow morning (Thursday).

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Primary Medical Care

Delivering world class accessible and responsive general medical care services for patients

This event, which aims to support PCTs in tackling some of the key challenges that continue to face patients, providers and commissioners will help PCT teams to:

achieve improved patient access and responsiveness through effective commissioning
recognise and use different contract levers to improve performance
understand the importance of effective patient engagement to identify best practice and address poor patient experience
learn from PCT and SHA colleagues on how the tools and lessons learned can be applied to make a real difference.

Further information on the events which will run in November and December is available on the events pages of the PCC website.

Licence to practise for doctors

From 16 November 2009, in order to practise medicine in the UK, a doctor will have to be registered with the General Medical Council (GMC) and hold a licence to practise. Recently issued GMC data shows that the overwhelming majority of currently registered doctors have elected positively to become licensed. Employers' guidance and a GMC resource pack on checking your doctors' licensing status is available on the GMC website.

Interim seniority figures published

The Technical Steering Committee, that has representatives from the GPC, NHS Employers and the Health Departments for England and Wales, has published the 2009/10 interim seniority figure for General Medical Service (GMS) contractors. The interim figures are £94,743 in England and £84,667 in Wales, and will be used by NHS payment agencies to determine the level of the seniority payments for 2009/10. For further information see the NHS Information Centre website.

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Pharmacy

Health Act 2009

The Health Act 2009 has received royal assent.

Provisions in the Health Act 2009 will require PCTs to develop and publish a pharmaceutical needs assessment, which will then be used in the determination of applications for inclusion in a pharmaceutical list.

Report on the prescribing of anti-psychotic drugs to people with dementia

In recognition of widespread concern about the over-prescription of anti-psychotic drugs, and as part of the priority being given to improving care for people with dementia, Professor Sube Banerjee was asked to undertake an independent clinical review of the use of anti-psychotic drugs. The Government has issued its response to his findings.

Breaking down the barriers: GPs and Pharmacists launch joint inquiry

A new inquiry has been jointly launched by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) to encourage closer integrated working between the two professions, locally and nationally.

The inquiry will examine:

current barriers to integrated working;
arrangements that could be put in place to facilitate more effective working in primary care;
existing examples of good partnership between GPs and pharmacists;
benefits for patients.

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Dentistry

New access template agreement launched

The new access template agreement was released this week. A number of changes have been made to the agreement following consultation with the BDA, LDCs, local bidders and a wide range of providers and other stakeholders. As a result, part payments are no longer part of the agreement, and a continuation clause has been included.

Dates are being announced for regional workshops for PCTs on the new template agreement and invitation to tender (DAP Procurement Workshop 3). The DAP team and SHAs will also hold separate workshops for potential providers on the same day. See www.dentalaccess.nhs.uk for further details.

Template letter for PCTs on Dental Access Programme

A template letter for PCTs to send to local dentists reminding them of the objectives of the Dental Access Programme and progress made to date is available for download.

E-reporting - latest developments

The roll-out of the second e-reporting licence to PCTs is due to be completed by the end of the month. One further licence for each PCT will be available from January 2010, taking the total allocated to each PCT to three.

Some SHA areas report 100% take-up in the last quarter. NHS Dental Services is looking at additional support packages for parts of the country where take-up is lower.

NHS Dental Services continues to introduce new content to the e-reporting tool. For questions about e-reporting, contact the NHS Dental Services helpdesk on 0845 126 8000 or ereporting@dpb.nhs.uk.

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Eye Care

Cataract surgery not linked to AMD progression, study claims

Contrary to previous findings, a new study has claimed that age-related macular degeneration (AMD) does not progress faster among patients who have cataract surgery.

Published in this month's Archives of Ophthalmology, researchers reported that the rate of progression from non-neovascular to neovascular AMD in a patient's eye after cataract surgery was similar to the progression observed in their cataract-free eye during the same period.

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Posts@PCC

NHS PCC secondment opportunity - south east coast: closing date for applications

NHS PCC is looking to secure a fixed term/secondment appointment for up to six months to the south east coast region. This is an opportunity to enhance your primary care commissioning experience, working as a Primary Care Commissioning Adviser (PCCA) - supporting PCTs with primary care commissioning and contracting advice and development. Further information, job description and application details can be obtained from rebecca.thornley@pcc.nhs.uk or sarah.rothwell@pcc.nhs.uk. Closing date for applications/expressions of interest is Friday 20 November with interviews scheduled for early December in London.

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Events@PCC

Subscriber only events

Other

Event open to all NHS

November 2009

For further event dates please see www.pcc.nhs.uk/events

Other events

The future of the children's workforce and the Healthy Child Programme - free event

NHS Employers is holding a free event for directors of public health, directors of nursing and directors of commissioning to explore the future direction of children's services and to look at the issues of importance to employers in this area. The workshop will be held in London on 2 December 2009 between 10am and 2pm. Register for the event on the NHS Employers' website.

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Contact and support details

PCC subscriber queries should be sent to the helpdesk. Alternatively, please contact your local PCCA.

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